At the 2009 Interbike trade show in as Vegas, TYR is introducing a line of wetsuits, something that has been missing in the portfolio of the Huntington Beach, CA company with the slogan "Made for swimmers by swimmers."

The new line of wetsuits has been named Hurricane, and there are 3 different models. Category 1 or C1 is the entry level suit, Category 3 (C3) the mid level offering and Category 5 (C5) the most high-end of the Hurricanes. Each model will be available in 8 sizes for men and 7 sizes for women.

According to TYR, this line of wetsuits has been 2 years in the making and they were getting quite a bit of feedback from 2007 Ironman 70.3 World Champion Andy Potts in the process, but the brand has been around for about 25 years without wetsuits. That of course begs the question, why now, after all these years without? There are many brands of wetsuits on the market now, and it appears that more and more new brands are jumping into the game.

"Introducing a new product is always a challenge and I would agree with you that there is already a lot of players in this space," said Ryan Dolan, the National Sales Manager for TYR. "That said, we have been asked the question, 'why don't you offer a wetsuit' by our accounts and athletes more and more as we devote more time and resources as a company to triathlon."

Slowtwitch will have a closer look at these new TYR wetsuits during the daily Interbike coverage.